Recording - July 2012 - 62

Scott Petito is a bassist and producer who has produced and recorded a wide variety of A-list artists, often at his NRS Recording Studio in upstate New York, and frequently adding his bass playing to the project. Check out Scott’s website at scottpetitoproductions.com. What prompted us to pick his brain this time around was the incredible variety of guitar stylists and tones he has recorded, from a raunchy blues guy like Lucky Peterson to someone like Larry Campbell and, at the epitomy of acoustic artistry, Romero Lubambo. We asked Scott to go into detail about the many aspects of choosing and miking guitars, in a nutshell.—LzR

Acoustic guitars
I start by considering the guitar. I prefer small-bodied guitars, 000s etc., especially for finger-picked parts. A good instrument in good shape with the proper strings is the starting place for any greatsounding guitar recording. Larger guitars, miked farther off, sound great for stumming, especially with very thin picks. Gives a nice percussive sound with less fundamentals. Before you get to choosing mics, first listen to the instrument and its balance in the room. Most guitars have a resonance peak, good or bad. Maybe a bump in the low mids... Find a good spot in the room that helps even the guitar’s response. Perspective guides my decision: How will the guitar fit into the final arrangement? Solo, small band, focus track, color?

Fingerpicking—I generally close-mike about 1 to 2 feet from the instrument, usually in stereo. For solo and small ensemble, where the guitar is going to be out front, I like to use a spaced pair at the neck and bridge position. I generally avoid placing mics directly in front of the soundhole, since it’s a lot like blowing over the top of a bottle. See Figure 1. For more rhythm or support tracks I like to use an X/Y setup (as shown in Figure 2); it gives a more focused image but still in stereo. [For more on specifics of stereo miking, see Michael Schulze’s article on page 56 of this issue of RECORDING.—Ed.] For pad-like parts I prefer mono recording, a bit further off the instrument. This is focused but retains a sense of space. Often these types of parts are doubled or tripled and hard-panned in the mix. I also like mono recording for solo single-line parts, again with the emphasis on keeping a focused but well balanced image. I’ve used tons of mic pairs and combinations. My current favorites for stereo recording are Microtech Gefell UMT 70 S and MT 71 S. The 70 is a bit thicker due to the transformers, which is not always what you want with guitar. These are small mics but not small-capsule mics. Many people do not like large-capsule mics for guitar recording, and over the years I’ve gone back and forth, but I think these mics give me the best of both worlds. For mono recording I prefer a Neumann U67 or a Gefell UM 900, placed at the neck joint, aimed in towards the sound hole, usually above the body unless the player is a heavy breather! Other, less pricey mic choices I like include the Audio-Technica AT4050, Shure KSM44, and BLUE Dragonfly. Notice that I have selected mostly multi-pattern mics. I often use an omni pattern for less proximity effect, especially if the room sounds nice. Ribbons and acoustics can also be a great choice if paired with a hi-gain preamp. I like the Royer R-122, a very quiet ribbon mic, shown in Figure 3 combined with a closely spaced pair of condensers. I often use these in X/Y stacked on top of each other in a Blumlein array, again avoiding the sound hole, but you need to experiment with positioning. By the way, since all ribbons are naturally figure-8, the resulting pattern of X/Y is pretty much omni. My favorite acoustic preamps are the Neve 1073, Great River, Phoenix Audio, and Focusrite 115. If I use any compression during tracking it tends to be an Empirical Labs Fatso Jr., more for the Warmth function. Some acoustic guitarists I have recorded include James Taylor, Rory Block, Taj Mahal, Richard Shindell, Arlen Roth, Rick Danko, Happy and Artie Traum, John Sebastian, David Spinozza, Al Pettiway, Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger, Larry Campbell, and hundreds more.

Figure 1. A spaced pair of mics, seen from front and above)
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RECORDING JULY 2012

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Recording - July 2012

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